The air didn't use to be poisonous. Long before the war, long before the Ascendance and the bloodshed the air used to be breathable. The sky used to be clear, colored in a variety of blue shades. There were days that the sun shone bright and warm for hours upon hours until, eventually, the moon rose in its place. It was still like that in parts of the rest of the world, in places where the witch covens had come together and they'd face the enemy head on, waging a ferocious war against him and coming out the other end victorious. But in the parts of the world where the war was lost, mainly in norther America, the smog had taken over.
Nowadays the air killed the plants and made humans sick. The scent of brimstone and blood assaulted the senses of anyone idiotic enough to venture outdoors and the everlasting smoke that had been magically set in place made it hard to see further than two feet from wherever you were standing. Funnily enough the only place where the air was still breathable was at the hunting zone. That, of course, wasn't a coincidence, but rather and ingenious show of power; the only open space where the air wouldn't kill you, was the place where, if you happened to end up at, it was more than a little likely you'd die anyway.
The hunting zone was at a part of San Fransisco where Melinda had never been to before the war. She had no idea what it had looked like before all the fire and the decay. It was, theoretically, a neutral zone. Originally, it served as a negotiation meeting point for the two warring forces to convene. But that had only lasted for a couple of months at the early stages of the Ascendance before the deathly attack that the Elders wielded against one of the Resistance's safe houses; it had been the first of many that followed and also the worse, considering the people taking refuge there didn't have an ounce of magic power to defend themselves. As a retaliation at the next peace negotiation gathering the Edler's committee had been ambushed and murdered in cold blood. Thus was the beginning of the hunting zone.
Reappearing at the same empty clearing as the previous night Melinda shivered looking around her. The stench of blood filled her lungs and she struggled to keep her eyes from lingering at the still charring bodies littering the streets. Melinda heard Matt dry-heave and she swallowed the bile rising in her own throat.
Unsurprisingly it was Ruth the one to first break the silence.
"Well, this turned out amazingly," she drawled, trying to match Matthew's tone from the previous night.
"This is all… How did we not die yesterday?" Matt wondered his eye flickering between the two girls. His face was too pale, and Melinda noticed he had his hands balled into fists.
"Dumb luck?" she suggested with a small shrug.
"And we thought we should push it by coming back today," Matt snarked, throwing a double-thumbs up her way.
"Children," Ruth admonished, before Melinda got a chance to retort. "You know how endlessly amusing I find your never-ending banter, but we are here on a mission."
"Yes, a suicide mission," Matt emphasized to which Melinda simply rolled her eyes.
"You are getting repetitive," she said and in a show of true maturity Matt stuck out his tongue.
Ruth sighed, loudly, gaining both of their attention.
"Could we please, maybe, focus?" she asked, looking at them pleadingly. Matt tilted his head, seemingly mulling over her words for a long second, before sighing heavily.
"Fine," he said. "Do you have any idea where you could've dropped your phone?"
"No," Melinda said, and he sucked his teeth, crossing his arms over his chest. "Maybe we should split up?"
"What?" the twins gasped in unison.
"Listen, I know it's risky-"
"It's beyond than!" Matt exclaimed. Melinda bit on the inside of her cheek and drew a calming breath to keep from snapping at him.
"I know that." She said slowly, "But we will cover more ground if we split up."
"Maybe she's right," Ruth said, and Matt turned to her, his eyebrows rising so high on his forehead they got lost behind his floppy brown hair.
"Traitor," he hissed narrowing his eyes at her.
"Matty, we'll be okay," Melinda said, instantaneously finding herself on the receiving end of his death-glare.
"You don't know that."
"Okay... here," Melinda extended her hand towards him, wiggling her fingers. "Let's see if you get a premonition."
Matt's expression turned sour, his gaze dancing between her proffered limb and her eyes.
"You know it doesn't work like that."
"It wouldn't hurt to try," she insisted.
Melinda fleetingly wondered whether she was doing this to reassure him or herself. When Matt still refused to touch her, Melinda leaned closer to him, getting a hold of his left hand, and holding it between both of hers. She more felt that heard his sharp intake and her heartbeat accelerated, fearing that they'd actually forced a premonition out of him.
And then Matt blinked.
"Nothing," he muttered, and she breathed out in relief. She squeezed his fingers in her hands, before dropping his hand.
"So, we are splitting up," Ruth said, her hand coming up to rub against her neck, a telltale sign she was growing anxious.
"Yes, and we'll be meeting back here in… twenty minutes?"
"I think that's enough time," Ruth agreed.
"Okay," Melinda said, wringing her hands together.
Ruth nodded curtly and then swiftly turned on her heels and walked towards what looked like an old parking lot, without saying a word to either of them. Matt took a step towards her, as if he was going to follow, but then he stopped. He looked at Melinda, his eyebrows furrowed. Melinda knew better than to try and pry at his thoughts, so she waited for him work through whatever was bothering him before speaking up.
"Be careful," her cousin said, his tone completely missing his usual smart. That on itself was so strange that it left Melinda slightly confused.
"I will," she promised.
Realizing that Matt was still trying to process something, Melinda offered him one last, tight-lipped smile and started walking to the opposite direction of where Ruth had headed. She straightened her shoulders and kept her eyes forward, fighting against the urge to look over her shoulder.
Melinda moved further away from the open lot they'd orbed in, following a path between obliterated buildings. Some of the ruins looked fresher than the rest of them and Melinda wondered, briefly, if these buildings had been destroyed in the previous nights' events. Melinda felt a kick in her stomach at that particular thought. She brought the hem of her sweater further up to cover her nose, the familiar scent of her detergent somewhat easing the tension in her body and hastened her pace.
If you later asked her how she'd found herself walking through an empty playground, Melinda wouldn't be able to answer. The graveled path she'd chosen twisted and looped around itself and suddenly there were no building ruins surrounding her, no shattered glass or brick scraps underneath her shoes.
Once upon a time, before the war and the massacre it brought along with it, Melinda and her cousins used to go to a playground near the Manor and play with the mortal kids. Nowadays playgrounds made the hair at her nape stand in alert. The one she found herself walking through hade her skin break in goosebumps. The quietness was eerie and heavy enough to make her ears pop. A gentle breeze swept through, and Melinda jolted when she heard the rusty swings groan, metal rubbing against metal, as they came to life.
Melinda swallowed, thickly, her eyes roaming around the empty playground. There was a prickly sense on the back of her neck, like someone was watching her. She was definitely growing paranoid. Melinda knew that, she knew the quietness was playing tricks on her already anxious mind and that she-
The sound of a glass shuttering against concrete had her jumping, again.
Melinda was panicking, her breaths coming fast and short. She took a couple of steps, walking backwards towards the center of the playground. She needed to calm herself down. Everything was fine, she was just over-stimulated due to her anxiousness, but she was going to be alright. It was all going to be-
Someone breathed next to hear ear.
Melinda gasped.
She spun around but there was no one there. She was standing alone, in the middle of the playground. The wind had picked up and the whine of the merry-go-round as it slowly circled around, had joined the groans of the rusty swing set. Melinda's erratic breathing was making her head fuzzy and her eyesight blurry. She tried to calm down, tried to relax the tension in her jaw and her shoulders.
Something touched her lower back.
Melinda screamed. She whirled around only to find out that, again, there was no one there. This was positively nightmarish. Melinda was by now certain that someone was playing with her. The sky had turned a dark grey color and the girl decided that she'd had enough. It was time for her to leave, phone or no phone. She started towards where she'd just come from, but then something grabbed the back of her jacket.
Melinda let out another scream, but this one never reached her ears. Her eyes widened and she yelled again, but no sound came out of her mouth. Melinda thrusted at the invisible force holding her in place, but it wouldn't budge. In a last attempt at freedom Melinda wrenched around, getting the jacket off her. The excessive force of her struggle had her stumbling forward. Melinda tried to catch herself, to stop from crushing down in a bed of yellowish dead leaves. She managed to remain upright, but then her shoe caught on something, and she tripped anew.
To save herself from landing on the hard concreate Melinda threw her hands out.
When she fell straight through it, she mentally chided herself for not thinking to orb away.
Are you a good person?
The words reverberated inside her mind as the darkness started reshaping itself. Melinda had no idea what kind of memory Piper's question would bring up. What memory could she possibly provide to answer such a question? A question to which, for the most part, she didn't have an actual answer to. The girl could feel the older witch's gaze fixated on her and trembled, without meaning to.
Melinda's stomach slowly sunk to her knees when the scene finally settled around them. They were standing inside a large foyer. A red plush carpet covered most of the floor. A huge mahogany table was situated in the middle of the room, with a centerpiece overflowing with black Dhallias resting on it. At the very back of the room a twisted staircase led to the upper floors from where clear sounds of struggle could be heard.
"What is this place?" Paige questioned the uneasiness evident in her tone.
"This is the Inquisitor's Palace," Melinda's voice was barely above a whisper, but somehow all three of them had heard her. Melinda wasn't sure whether that was the actual name of that godforsaken building, but she knew it was what the leaders of the Resistance called it.
"I'm sorry, the what now?" Phoebe asked, her eyebrows rising high enough to almost meet her hairline.
Melinda's stomach sunk even lower in her body, wondering how the hell she was supposed to explain to them where they were standing. Thankfully the sound of someone coming down the stairs put an end to whatever conversation had started between her and the sisters.
"Just a little further away and then we can orb."
Chris's voice filtered into the room just before he appeared on the staircase. Piper let a soft gasp, one of her hands immediately going over her belly. The back of Melinda's eyes started stinging as she looked at her brother; he was much younger in this memory, barely a couple of months older than Melinda was now. His hair was messy, falling over his eyes and his clothes were torn at several places. It was obvious he'd been through a fight, and he was slightly limping, but the look on his face was one of pure relief, as he guided a younger version of Melinda towards the front door.
Melinda had been eleven years old at the time. She could still remember walking up in an odd bedroom, with her father's face looming over her. She could still remember how scared she'd felt when he told her that this was her new house, that soon her brothers would also join them. She could still remember screaming her throat raw, once he'd closed the bedroom's door behind him, the key locking her inside.
The older Melinda watched as the younger version of her stumbled in her haste to make it to the door. A small hand came up to rub against a pair of eyes that looked bloodshot; Melinda had been in that house for five days. For five days she hadn't slept a wing. She was wearing an awful freely yellow dress, which made her look even paler. To this day Melinda could still remember how it itched.
A loud crash from upstairs made Chris stop halfway to the door. His eyes flew to the ceiling, his breath caught in his throat. Then there was a scream and Melinda's eyes widened in fear. She quickly brought her free hand to Chris' side, snatching at his torn hoodie.
"Ch-chr-ris, w-w-wha-t-t is go-go-ing on?" her voice was thin, her lips wombling. Chris took a hold of her hand, crouching down so to be on her eye level.
"Something bad happened, but it's all going to be okay," he said his eyes pinning into hers. Melinda looked at him doubtfully. "Hey, have I ever lied to you?" the young girl shook her head no. "Exactly; so, you know you can trust me, right?"
"Yeah," she said, her fingers tightening around his. Chris' eyes momentarily fell on their joined hands, before finding hers again.
"Okay, so, when I tell you, we will walk through this door," Chris said, looking towards it. Melinda's eyes followed and she slowly nodded in understanding. Another piercing scream sounded from upstairs and the little girl jumped fearfully.
"Ch-ch-ris, I-I'm sc-scar-red," she whimpered, her stuttering making it hard for him to understand her.
"I know you are, sweetie. But I promise it will be fine, okay? We just need to get out of the door and then we can orb somewhere safe, but we can't do it in here; there are protection spells," Chirs said, his tone gentle. "Do you understand?"
Melinda remained mute, but she moved closer to him.
"Alright, honey, just follow me to the door, okay?" Chris said, straightening his body. Melinda clasped on his hand with both of her own and started after him, her body almost entirely pressed against him.
Soon as the door opened the smell of charred flesh filled the room. Silent tears rolled down Melinda's face and she pressed against Chris' back, but not before catching sight of the robed bodies that were strewn all over the doorsteps. The golden robes had turned a crisp brown, some of them still smoking. From across the street a cloud of black smog rose towards the sky, hiding from view the obliterated ruins of the buildings that used to be there.
A figure was crouching among the Elders' bodies, murmuring something in a low voice, a tangle of golden locks sweeping gently into the evening breeze. Upon realizing the door had opened he straightened, taking a couple of steps towards them.
"Finally," he said, a small smile playing on his lips. "What took you guys so long?"
Chris bit on the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something lewd and sarcastic. Instead he carded his fingers through Melinda's hair, as the girl slowly pulled her face away from his side.
"Wy?" it came out as a question, her fear and confusion too prevalent to allow her to believe that they were there.
"Hey, angel," Wyatt said back, walking closer to them. Melinda didn't budge from Chris' side.
"She's still shaken up," Chris said. "She was in a locked room, no windows, no bathroom," he continued, his voice hardening, "No food," he added, setting his jaw. Wyatt's eyes flickered from Melinda to Chris before landing back on the little girl.
And then the scene froze; that was the last thing Melinda could remember from that day. She had no recollection of Wyatt and Chris taking her back to the headquarters. She could not remember who had helped her out of that godawful dress or who had helped her shower and eat. Her next memory was from a couple of days later, when Ruth had come to her room claiming she was the next king Arthur because she'd managed to get a sword out of a stone.
Melinda could hear the soft sobs of someone crying. She clenched her jaw, her arms crossing over her chest. Her nails snatched at the material of her shirt over her elbows, her knuckles turning white from the pressure. She would sooner die, than allow herself to react to their pity.
"So," the word came out croaked and Paige cleared her throat before trying again; "The Elders have finally gone off the deep end, huh?"
Despite herself Melinda snorted in amusement.
"Paige!" Phoebe admonished with a light swat on her arm. Paige blinked at her.
"She thought it was funny," she said defensively, inclining her head towards Melinda. Phoebe looked at her sister in silent exasperation before focusing on Melinda.
Melinda shifted where she was standing; she did not particularly like the way Phoebe's eyes bored into her.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," the older witch said, and Melinda could tell there was genuine emotion behind her words. Which was pretty ironic, considering they'd just cast a spell on her. Still, she bit down the sarcastic remark that started bubbling up her throat, deciding to simply nod in acknowledgement.
"That other witch was Wyatt, wasn't he?" Phobe asked, but Melinda could tell it was not a question.
"Well, she did call him by his name," Paige muttered under her breath, earning another exasperated glare from her sister.
"Was he the one who…" Phoebe's sentence trailed off, but Melinda wasn't going to make this easy on them. She simply raised her chin, arms still crossed tightly over her body. "Did he um… Where the Elders…" Phoebe paused, her discomfort evident in her face.
"Did he kill them? Did he kill those Elders?" Piper spoke up, finishing Phoebe's question.
For the first time since they'd landed in this memory, Melinda looked at her.
Melinda had never seen her mother cry. Granted, Melinda had been fairly young when Piper was murdered, so they hadn't spent all that much time together. But the memories Melinda had of her were ones of a loving, albeit stern mother, who rarely expressed her emotions so openly. In fact, there had been plenty of times when her mother would softly but firmly advise her to always be careful of showing what she was feelings, especially when her emotions were heightened. For as long as she could remember Melinda had tried to live by that rule, but it proved to be exceptionally hard. Melinda had spent plenty of sleepless nights wondering just how disappointed her mom would be with Melinda's inability to control herslef.
The image of the weeping woman standing in front of her, of the mother who felt so distraught over the idea that her son had killed someone, completely clashed with the always-collected Piper from Melinda's memories.
"Not on his own," Melinda said the sound of her own voice sounding harsher than she had meant it to be. Piper's eyes brimmed with a new batch of tears. "They were not good people," she continued, hoping to make them understand without saying too much; "They were better off dead."
If she had to go by the horrified look on Piper and Phoebe's faces, she was not doing a very good job and convincing them she was a good person.
"Is this why there were no windows in the first memory?" Paige said after a long second of silence, her hand moving vaguely towards the destroyed site of down-town San Franscisco that was still on display.
"Yeah, pretty much," Melinda answered, grateful that someone had broken the silence. "The sun is not exactly visible anymore, so we don't really need the windows for natural lighting. It's also safer with no windows; the air inside the bunker is filtered, so there's no chance of anyone getting poisoned."
"Your air is poisoned?" Phoebe asked, her eyes widening in alarm.
"And you live in a bunker?" Piper added. Melinda bit on her lip to keep from screaming; so much for not giving away too much information. "What does that mean exactly? What is that bunker? Who else lives there?"
Once again, the spell worked around Piper's questions to provide an answer. The Inquisitor's Palace dissolved into a burst of lighting, leaving them in the, now familiar, darkness. Melinda drew a deep breath. The darkness provided her with some much-needed privacy and the girl allowed herself to unlock her stiff posture, if only for the short time it took for the spell to choose the next memory.
When the room started reshaping around them, Melinda frowned; this was not the memory she'd pick to explain to someone what the bunker was or how many people were currently living there. But maybe the spell was trying to protect some of her secrets, while still choosing something truthful. In this new setting, Melinda and the sisters found themselves standing right in the middle of the quad, Melinda's favorite place in the bunker, after her bedroom.
The room was magicked to give the illusion of being outdoors; all four walls were glamoured to depict a scenery one would usually expect to see at a park and the ceiling mirrored the sky, changing colors throughout the course of the day. There was, of course, the slight problem of the light being too bright to pass as natural and the fact that there were days the air smelt kind of stale for an open-air space. Still, it was the one room in the underground headquarters that attracted the majority of the place's occupants.
The quad was large enough to fit a basketball court, a track field, and a boxing ring. One of the far corners was occupied by a greenhouse, which was pivotal for the Resistance's food supply. On the other far corner there was a seating space, fully equipped with tables and colorful outdoor umbrellas. The quad usually doubled as a classroom for the combat lessons, on the days Maxwell decided he did not feel like teaching in the armory. The combat class was one of the few in the joined curriculum; meaning that all the underage people living in the bunker were forced to attend, whether they were of magical descent or not.
In this particular memory, which was only a couple of months old unlike the previous two, Melinda's class was running laps on the track field, while Maxwell, their combat professor, timed them with a disapproving look on his face. Melinda had to jump out of the way as memory-Matthew came running towards her, only to collapse on the tarmac a few seconds later. The boy lied on the floor, trying and falling to control his erratic breathing. A hand came up to shield his eyes from the sun glare, while the other one rested on his chest.
Soon enough memory-Melinda collapsed next to him.
Melinda was panting. She tried to draw in a deep breath, but it got cut short and she ended up coughing instead. Unlike Matt, she decided on a seated position with both her legs extended in front of her. Her hands came to press against her sides and she brough her chin close to her chest, trying to calm her heartbeat.
"All I'm saying is; if they keep trying to build up our stamina, we will most definitely die," Matthew whizzed in between sharp breaths. Melinda wanted to agree, but she felt like she was going to throw up if she tried to speak, so she refrained.
"I just think you two like to whine," Ruth's voice broke between them. Melinda lifted her gaze enough to glare at the other girl; she didn't even sound slightly winded.
"Are you kidding? Tell me you are kidding! We've been running around the track for an hour!" Her brother said incredulously.
Ruth towered over them an unimpressed look taking over her face.
"Exactly; it was barely sixty minutes of cardio," Ruth said, flicking her auburn ponytail over her shoulder. Melinda openly gaped at her.
"How dare you?" Matthew whispered, horrified, as he looked at Ruth.
"I like her," Paige said with a little smirk, speaking over Ruth's next words. Melinda snuck a look at her only to find the youngest charmed one looking intensely at the twins.
"This is some impressive showcase of magic," Phoebe said, her eyes roaming around the quad. "It must have taken a massive amount of power and talent," she continued, turning her gaze to Melinda.
"It did," Melinda said laconically.
It had actually taken the better part of a month for the heads of the Resistance to put the quad room together; afterwards everyone who'd worked on the project had been left drained and exhausted for a whole week, including both her Aunts and her brothers.
Melinda returned her attention to the scene playing out before her, managing to catch the end tail of Matt's sentence.
"…the show is about to start," Matthew said, pushing against the tarmac to straighten himself. He quickly wiped his hands against Ruth's jumper to dust them off. The girl huffed in anger and Matt had to jump out of the way to avoid her clenched fist.
"You absolute wanker," she seethed going after him anew. Matt yelped, grabbing Melinda who'd just stood up and dragging her in front of him.
"They are your family, aren't they?" Phoebe said, taking note of the way Melinda was looking at her cousins. Melinda shifted, uncomfortable, pressing her lips into a thin line. Phoebe looked like she wasn't expecting an answer, so Melinda didn't provide one.
"What are they all looking at?" Paige asked, narrowing her eyes as if to get a better look of what was happening at the boxing ring. A large number of people had gathered around, making it almost impossible for them to see what was happening inside, especially from this distance.
"We can get closer," Melinda pointed out, sparing a look at the sisters before following after the memory version of herself.
Melinda trailed behind Matthew, who had a firm hold on her wrist. Her cousin pushed and shoved his way to the front and Melinda muttered quick apologies to everyone around her. Ruth was already waiting for them at the front row, lazily twirling her ponytail between her fingers. Melinda tore her hand free from Matthew's grip, rubbing at the sensitive skin there with her own fingers. The gathered audience started whooping and the twins joined them shortly. Melinda stuck her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and looked at the ring.
Max and Cassandra were circling each other like wild animals, ready to attack. Melinda could see their mouths moving, but she was too far to make out what they were saying. Melinda bounced lightly on the balls of her feet; the anticipation of the crowd around her was making her uneasy. She was pondering whether or not she should orb back to her bedroom, when she heard Matt wince in pain; someone had made the first move.
Melinda had never been good at physical combat and not for luck of trying. She had spent hours upon hours inside the boxing ring getting her ass handed to her again and again by the majority of her class. Her movements were always too slow, too predictable and as for her coordination it was nowhere to be found. All in all Melinda's fighting prowess was a complete antithesis of what was currently happening on the rink. Melinda looked in awe as Cassandra rushed towards Maxwell, swinging a powerful right hook. Max met her halfway, lashing out with his own right. Cassandra's punch was faster, catching him flush in the face. Maxwell took it in the mouth, spat blood and bared his teeth grinning widely as he dashed at her. He hurled her on the floor with such force that Cassandra's body almost bounced on it. Still, it took her but a second to roll over like a cat, gasping for air before scrambling to her feet. Cassandra lunged for Maxwell, butting him in the chest.
Melinda was too caught up in her own memory to notice the energy flicker to her right, or to sense the change in the power balance.
So, when she heard the familiar voice, she violently jerked out of her reverie.
"Melinda, is that really you?"
Her eyes rounded, her jaw going slack.
"Cassie?"